Much of the focus, last week was on the FEPA (Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act) hearing. It is imperative we keep up any pressure to influence D.C. to #StopFEPA!

Also happening last week, was the third U.S. Senate HELPHEA (Higher Education Act)Hearing. If you missed the Hearing, you can watch the archived version. Scroll down to ‘watch video’. If you missed my article about the Hearing and how it’s tying into the global education agenda, access that here. (*Note: the Hearing is just over 2 hours)

What’s the ‘catch’ about the HEA Hearing? Well, Warriors, there are several.

First, the HEA was created back in 1965. It’s been re-authorized roughly the same amount of times as the original ESEA (Elementary and Secondary Education Act). The HEA was LAST re-authorized (in its entirety) in 2008.

Then, there’s the latest re-branding of the HEA. Instead of the “Higher Education Act”, the name has been updated to now be known as the “Higher Education Innovation Act”.

Warriors, remember, this version belongs to the U.S. Senate. The U.S. House also has a re-branded HEA title in their version: PROSPER (Promoting Real Opportunity, Success, and Prosperity Through Education Reform). I wrote about the global ties to the House’s version of the HEA back in Dec. 2017. Earlier this year, I updated the information on PROSPER, here.

Next, the obvious fact that the HEA is the LAST link in the CCSS Machine’s chain for grid-locking ALL education to the workforce based, competency leveling assessing in EVERY level of schooling.

The HEA Hearing last week was supposedly about protecting taxpayers. (Who, by the way, are expected to one more time foot the bills for education reform which is 100% illegally based!) Warriors, any time Senator Lamar Alexander is leading the way in education reform, NO taxpayer is protected!

The last ‘catch’ of the HEA Hearing is this: demagogue judgement on every ‘valued person’ in higher education. The judgement? “Poor outcomes” in student performance mean taxpayers suffer.

Of course, we know, thanks to the CCSS Machine, that ‘student outcome‘ is tied to teachers leadership. It’s been done so in a way which is demeaning and outrageous.
Congress should be treating students and teachers as the wonderfully gifted, ‘valued people’ they are!

Notice, D.C. is great about pointing to every person in America as part of the problem, while the REAL issue(s) will continue to go unaddressed! The leadership assumes the taxpayers are idiots. This has been happening for decades, Warriors. By both political parties!

Warriors, think about it, when it comes to your education activism.
How many times has leadership deemed you as somehow ‘misinformed’?! How many deaf ears have been turned our way when it comes to speaking out?!

The “New” V.M. (Value Meter):

As if the demagogue leadership isn’t insulting our nation enough, the CCSS Machine member organization, AACC (American Association of Community Colleges), has created a new voluntary framework to measure higher education students. It deals with ‘accountability’.

What the AACC isn’t telling you, is that they are a UN (United Nations)partner organization. As such, you can bet the ‘new’ accountability measure for ‘valued people’ will be full of global reform.

The HEA Hearing from last week also included higher education ‘accountability’.

I’ll get to the framework shortly. I want to pause first to make a few points for those of you who may wish to share this article.

A) Community colleges are used by all ages and from every educational choice. The CCSS Machine’s grasp on the community colleges across the nation has put the community college in the exact center of the one-way-to-learn-so-you-will-earn education reform. The UN’s global education also includes the one-way-to-learn-so-you-will-earn system.

B) For many students and families, community colleges are the ‘go to’ answer for not only paying much less (have you noticed how the CCSS Machine agenda includes ‘free’ community college?), BUT, it’s where you can supposedly ‘get ahead’ faster.

C) If you’re attending community college after a public school graduation, it’s here your CCSS Machine pre-determined career track will continue.

D) If you’re attending one of these schools as part of your homeschooling, or immediately upon completing your homeschooling requirements, it’s community college where you’ll be sucked into the CCSS Machine’s agendaand data mining system.

E) If you’ve decided community college is a great way to begin a second career or have been out of school for many years, the CCSS Machine agenda will encompass you as well.

F) If your job requires you to attend community college as a way to earn a promotion, you, too will be ensnared by the CCSS Machine’s global education idea of trained workers for specific jobs.

Warriors, by making this framework voluntary, post-secondary schools will be able to choose to belong to this system. However, as we’ve seen with ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act)‘choice’ (when it comes to accountability) is distorted.
Hang on, though, Warriors; there are two things to point out here:

A) The AACC isn’t Congress, however, the AACC Advocates lobby Congress to help promote federal agenda for community colleges! What’s more? This group is aggressive in pushing education policy.

B) We need to watch HOWCongress will re-write the HEA in both Chambers to see how mandated ‘accountability’ will become in post-secondary schools. The mandates for K-12th grades are tremendously overreaching.

According to the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)Sample, this Framework will take several years before any real results can be seen. ‘Gateway’ (college level) English and Math courses and assessments are to be measured. How well your student (or even you) persist from one semester to another is gauged. Then there is ‘how many credits you earn’ while attending one of these community colleges participating. You’ll also see the ‘readiness’ factor used in this system. “How ready are Johnny and Suzy for community college?”

Warriors, interestingly enough, I did find at least two presentations, here in America, for ‘gateway’ Math and English in the community college landscape. The first one appears to be from MO and was presented by the “Complete College” campaign. The second is from a VA community college and shows the ties to specific ways the ‘gateways’ are tied to local economics, race, and, gender.

You also may find it interesting that in the UK (United Kingdom) a 2 year Gateway English and Math is used in not only higher education, but apprenticeships, and other workforce-based competency ways.

As we’ve seen here in America, apprenticeships are also CCSS Machine aligned and are used as a way for the demagogue-led system to ‘sell’ more jobs. We know Congress is fully behind aligning education to workforce needs.

Another 5 year initiative for aligned education.

Closing:

If you wish to attend an upcoming webinar on how all this will drive students to ‘success’, visit this link. The date is Feb. 8th, 2018, time the webinar begins is 1: 00 PM. A second webinar on this topic is set for Feb. 16th, 2018. That one begins at 11:00 AM. All times are Eastern Standard.

Warriors Against the Core, it’s not a festive report I bring to you today. However, it IS relevant to our War Vs Fed Ed.

That stated, I would like you to recall the ancient tale of the Pied Piper. You may remember the version where the Piper would play his flute to lead the rats away. However, the original version of the tale is a bit more sinister. In that version, the Piper returns to the village for payment for removal of said rats. His payment? The children. I’ll leave it at that. However, if you wish to read the more ghastly version: http://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/disturbing-true-story-pied-piper-hamelin-001969

So how is the CCSS Machine playing its own version of the Pied Piper?

I think, we, as educated anti CCSS Warriors, know how: with deception at almost every level of existence.

Depending on what type of deception is needed determines what tune the Piper uses on the flute. Depending on what level of ‘accountability’ is being performed determines just who the Piper may be at that moment. For example, The Pied Piper of ESSA has to be Sen. Lamar Alexander playing his ‘song’ of ‘returning education control to the States’. However, the Piper’s tune for something like ‘filling the skills gap’ or ’21st Century Skills’ could be led by many groups anxious to lead our students away.

In the remainder of this article, our Piper for the “21st Century Skills” is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

So, Warriors, just WHAT does this organization do to lead our students off to a CCSS/CTE/Workforce Educated demise?! Here’s an excerpt from Oct. 2016:“The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation (USCCF) announced today the first cohort of nineteen participants in the Talent Pipeline Management Academy which is supported by a $2.5 million grant from USA Funds. USCCF’s signature workforce development initiative, Talent Pipeline Management (TPM), is a new way of addressing the nation’s skills gap by positioning employers in a more central role as key customers of post-secondary education and training providers. The TPM Academy consists of workshops led by USCCF for business professionals to receive instruction on talent pipeline strategies and guidance for implementation. In addition to a curriculum, technical assistance, and a peer-to-peer learning network, a key resource to be developed as part of the Academy will be the next generation of software tools and applications that support ongoing implementation of signature TPM strategies.”

More Piper Tunes:One of the ‘biggest’Piper tunes the CCSS Machine churns out and that ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) plays, leads students astray via business/corporate overreach into the classroom as the answer to lots of ‘skill gap’ problems.

GradsforLife plies this ‘tune’, “The talent pipeline is developed with specific needs and current challenges in mind. Standards developed by the employer coalition are constantly changing based on the current economic environment. It is, therefore, more impactful for the business community to define what skills its workforce needs than to wait for the world of academia to catch up. At the same time, this progressive approach may incentivize academic chiefs to develop reforms.”

Warriors, we’ve seen enough non-educator based disaster via the CCSS Machine. We do not need more. Yet, between ESSA, WIOA (Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act), and HEA (Higher Education Act) have laid a road for the “Pied Piper” where businesses and corporations INCREASEtheir overreach into the classrooms.

Of the Case Studies the U.S. Chamber’s Talent Pipeline has conducted, at least 2 are corporations and/or businesses are ones I’ve researched and published my findings as to each of their “Pied Piper CCSS/CTE” tunes. Toyota and General Assembly. To see the Case Studies, https://www.uschamberfoundation.org/talent-pipeline-management-case-studies

Warriors Against the Core, I do not wish to leave you on such a drastic mental image. However, I am not the only Warrior who’s compared what is happening to our students to awful things. I am not alone in hating what is going on in America, as far as our education system being so overrun with Pipers who deceive, indoctrinate, and conform our students.
We must mute their tunes! We must stand between the Pipers of Reform and our students, regardless of their age. The Pipers of Reform are here for EVERY student, not a select few.

Back in December 2014, I first wrote about Common Core, Career and Technical Education and its impact on the Special Needs students. What’s the latest for this population group in Post-Secondary education? Let’s find out in today’s article. Below is the link to the 2014 article:

Want to know how aligned post secondary education can be? Imagine your student on any one of the 3 tracks you see.

An Education Webinar from June 30th:

Just a couple of days ago, the Gates Foundation backed “Education Week” hosted a free educational webinar about post secondary life for those with special needs. The following information is from links suggested as credible resources during the webinar. Credible for us, the anti CCSS Warriors, means we can use the resources to know where to look to access the CCSS Machine’s grasp for our students with special needs.

Education Week’s article, “Advocates Hope Common Core Will Rub Off”shares this criticism that not enough transitional planning is going on for those with special needs shifting from high school to post secondary education. While that may or may not be true, it’s the source EW used which is skewed towards CCSS/CTE (AIR, American Institutes of Research) offering the criticism. “”Many plans lack depth, breadth, and personalization; have low expectations for students with disabilities; do not include plans for postsecondary education; and do not map out how the K–12 education system should connect to other systems, such as postsecondary, vocational rehabilitation, workforce training, or independent services,” says a 2013 report from the American Institutes for Research. “As a result, many students with disabilities leave high school with amorphous and generic plans that fail to address their individual circumstances or interests.” To access the entire article: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/06/04/advocates-hope-common-core-will-rub-off.html?intc=EW-DPCT15-TOC

From that 2013 AIR Report (be sure to click on the image to enlarge it):

NASDSE, the National Association of State Directors of Special Education, Inc.:

This group based in VA, is supporting the ‘Every Child Achieves Act’(aka: HR5 as the re-authorization of the NCLB law which in turn gave us Race to the Top and Common Core). Here’s an excerpt from their letter of support to Sen. Lamar Alexander, “NASDSE commends you for including in your bill language that only allows up to one percent of all students – those who have the most significant cognitive disabilities – to take an alternate assessment based on alternate achievement standards. This cap is critical to ensuring that students with disabilities will remain on track to graduate from high school prepared for postsecondary education and/or a career. We therefore urge that you oppose any efforts during the bill’s markup that would raise or eliminate this cap.” You can read the entire letter, http://www.nasdse.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=hLXguhdRtoM%3d&tabid=36

Also available from the NASDSE, is a 2004 data collection document which spells out what ADDITIONAL data is collected on each student with special needs. You can read it: SpecNeedsDataCollect

NASDSE has been around since 1938, but its most recent set of goals includes more post secondary success for the students served. Here’s a short paragraph you may find interesting, “The continued collaboration with our key partners, including the National Association of State Title I Directors and the Council of Administrators of Special Education brings us closer to common language in serving and improving outcomes for all students and remains a priority for NASDSE, as is collaboration with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs, in order to provide input regarding implementation of the State Systemic Improvement Plans, Results Driven Accountability and the role of the National Center for Systemic Improvement (NCSI) in providing direct support to our members.”

If you’re curious about the funding each state receives for educating special needs students, NASDSE and AIR (as in the group above) partnered together back in 2010 and published a report about this topic. See: NASDSEAIR

Pacer’s National Parent Center on Transition and Employment, http://www.pacer.org/transition/:

From their website, “Founded in 1977, PACER Center was created by parents of children and youth with disabilities to help other parents and families facing similar challenges. PACER Center enhances the quality of life and expands opportunities for children, youth, and young adults with all disabilities and their families so each person can reach his or her highest potential. PACER operates on the principles of parents helping parents, supporting families, promoting a safe environment for all children, and working in collaboration with others.” It is a non profit organization based in MN. It is funded by the U.S. Dept. of Education’s Office for Special Education Programs (*NOTE: you can find this fact at the bottom of every page on the website highlighted in blue)

From the Pacer’s 2014 published resources, a ‘new’ way to look at career paths for those students ready to go from high school to post secondary education. Here’s an interesting couple of paragraphs to read. When reading, consider the context of Career Pathways and/or Career and Technical Education (which are CCSS aligned), “To be able to acquire these skills and effectively change jobs, and plan and manage multiple careers over one’s life time, career development skills are important. The process by which youth get to know their strengths and interests, learn how different jobs connect with those interests, and build these career planning and management skills is called career development.”

“By helping to support youth in making important informed decisions about their future, parents and other caring adults can contribute a great deal to their children’s post-high school success. For youth with disabilities in particular, families often play the very important roles of setting high expectations for youth’s future employment, and of advocating for opportunities for them to identify their strengths and interests and to explore career options. Families who learn about and begin the career development process with their youth early will be better prepared to support them in choosing and building a bright future. “Family” here is defined broadly as adults and children related biologically, emotionally, or legally, including single parents, blended families, unrelated individuals living cooperatively, and partnered couples who live with biological, adopted, and foster children.” The entire document was found on a linked website from the Pacer’s website. The National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability (NCWD). To read the NCWD’s entire document, http://www.ncwd-youth.info/node/1463(*NOTE: The NCWD is part of the Institute for Educational Leadership which is a supported by a grant from the U.S. Dept. of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy, ODEP; you can find this information at the bottom of the page when you access the article mentioned directly above. It’s highlighted in blue.)

“Think College!”, http://www.thinkcollege.net/:

From their website, you can find out that “Think College is a project of the Institute for Community Inclusion at the University of Massachusetts Boston. The Think College initiatives are funded by grants from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, the Administration on Developmental Disabilities, the Office of Special Education Programs, and the Office of Postsecondary Education.”

If you need more evidence of how intrusive the CCSS Machine is being in regard to our families and students with special needs, please let me know. If you have such evidence or wish to provide a real life account of your family’s saga with Career and Tech Education or Common Core, please let me know.

Two days ago, I broke the news via my blog that 5 states had been fast tracked by the Federal government to renew ESEA/NCLB waivers (which means renewing Common Core, Career Tech Ed, College/Career Ready Standardsand all the other portions of ‘fed led ed’, the P3 (Public, private partnership) CCSS Machine we’ve become saddled with. For today’s “Tech Thursday”, we’ll be looking much further into exactly what each of the 5 states (NC, NM, KY, VA, and MN) are in for. All this just a few days before the massive HR5 (Student Success Act) is supposed to be voted on. I must point out, this is an extremely detailed article. Much information the states not chosen need to use as tools.

Knowing there are 5 states which were chosen because of their diligence in jumping through the CCSS laden hoops, is certainly bad enough. However, just WHAT did each of the states promise the feds in order to be chosen? Below you’ll see NC’s promises (click to enlarge it).

Technical Detail #1: December 2014 is when the ball got rolling on this ‘request’. To be precise, using the NC DPI (North Carolina Dept. of Public Instruction) information, Dec. 18th, 2014. Notice was posted on the NC Public Schools Public Comments page, as well as sent on to principals, teachers, education partners, and others.

Technical Detail #2: January 2015’s meeting is where the information from previous ESEA face-to-face meetings of Title One COPs (Committee of Practitioners) was taken into consideration for the ‘request to renew’ ESEA/NCLB waivers. Not surprisingly, the vote was unanimous to proceed with renewing NC’s commitment to CCSS/CTE/CCR.

Techncial Detail #3: Of all the information spread across NC to announce public comment was needed (Dec. 2014) only 3 responses were received! One disgusted assistant principal over high-stakes assessments and 2 from a superintendent’s office questioning the process wasn’t including enough people.

Technical Detail #4: At several educational meetings spread out across the state and involving all sort of ‘stakeholders’, ‘various aspects of renewal’ were discussed. One NC State Board of meeting (12/4/14); one NC Superintendent’s Quarterly meeting (12/5/14); one Northwest (NC) Principals’ Advisory Council meeting (12/9/14); one AIG(Academically and/or Gifted Intelligence) Regional Leadership meeting (involved school districts leaders from all 8 regions of the SBE {meaning NC’s State Board of Education}. This meeting was held 12/16 and 17/14; one P-20W(Preschool to Grade 20/ Workforce) Policy Council meeting on 1/6/15 {the Council contains the following members: early education, K-12 education, higher education institutions {meaning community colleges/universities}, independent colleges/universities, AND the NC Dept. of Commerce}; another Title One COPs meeting (1/12/15); one conference call meeting with two members of the NC Governor’s Education staff (1/12/15); one meeting with several members of the Executive Committee of the NCSSA (NC School Superintendent’s Association) held 1/13/15; another meeting of the Northwest PAC (see above), 1/14/15; and one meeting between 20 school superintendents with the Executive Director of the NCSSA (see above) at the Next Generation Superintendent Development Program, held 1/15/15. The feedback from all these meetings helped shape the ‘request’ NC submitted to renew the ESEA/NCLB waivers. More assessments are in store for NC students, or so it appears. (you’ll need to see page 64 of the pdf)

Technical Detail #5: Should any new legislation impact the conditions of the renewal ESEA/NCLB waivers, we’re not to worry, the U.S. Dept. of Education has a process for that.

Technical Detail #6: To be thoroughly compliant with the ESEA/NCLB renewal request, NC granted its SPAC (Superintendent’s Parent Council) the opportunity for feedback, 1/22/15. (The SPAC was formed in 2013 as a sort of watchdog group) The only discussion or feedback was the topic of schools receiving letter grades (A-F) and if this is a federal condition or state led. According to the application request, staff members clarified it was a state requirement.

Technical Detail #7: The NCAE (NC Association of Educators) met to discuss the renewal request and (no surprise here) in full support. (*Note: you can see that letter in one of the attachments to the renewal request NC submitted, in the pdf provided)

The ‘smoking gun’ in all this? NC requested the renewal in exchange for continued rigor!

To see the entire multi-page renewal request (where you can access all kinds of information connected to NC’s Educational realm): nc3reqatt32015

Why would I go here, after all the buzz is MN doesn’t have CCSS. Well, that’s not exactly true. According to one of my warrior followers, I’ve been told what really is happening there. CCSS is in the state, just not like it is in the others (gee, didn’t TX and VA have similar ‘songs’?) Let’s also keep in mind the U.S. Dept. of Ed picked these 5 states due to their exemplary work in College/Career Readiness, etc. Back to my warrior’s words about CC in MN, “We are the ONLY state that has never had any hearing on CC. We can’t get our Dems or Repubs to talk about it openly/ Our legislators need a wake up call/We’ve (those opposed to CCSS) have been working hard.” My friend went on to share that while the exchanges thus far between citizens/legislature have been friendly, there’s been zero action. So, with that let’s see the Technical Details to their ESEA/NCLB ‘request’:

Technical Detail #1: This 2015 ESEA/NCLB waiver is considered a progress step in the state’s 7 pronged plan. While you can see the 7 points in the entire document, it’s the group of folks which were involved in making this request from the U. S. Dept. of Ed:

Look at the P3s! (Public, private partnerships)

Technical Detail #1 for MN: all that college/career readiness will be the line in the sand for which all connected accountabality to proceed. (see page 19)

Here’s another state that has been reported as not having CCSS/CCR/CTE. However, look at the screen shot of their recently approved renewal request:

College/career readiness in VA. Tell me that’s not CCSS.

The Technical Details:

Technical Detail #1 for VA: Their revisions for ESEA/NCLB waivers began back in 2013. Then, 2014 brought an extension of the waivers. In the first 3 months of 2015, VA sought out to renew their waivers.

Technical Detail #2 for VA: College/Career Readiness and Career Tech Ed have been in place in VA since the early 80s; however when any state or school receives Perkins Funding in these modern times, you’re getting funding that aligns you to CCSS’ version. Same can be said for IDEA funding, Titles 1, 1b, 4, 9, and any other one. One quick look at VA’s CTE page and you’ll see the 16 Career Clusters.

Technical Detail #3 for VA: Bring on the 21st Century Community Learning Centers! (Condition #10 on page 5)

Technical Detail #4 for VA: “Next Generation Assessments”, page 17

Technical Detail #5 for VA: Step up the data mining, page 17

Technical Detail #6 for VA: All the College Board, ACT, Inc., IB, AP, early college strappings the rest of America is experiencing, VA is embracing or about to. See pages 19-51.

VA’s Smoking Gun? By accepting renewed waivers and the alignment that goes with it the ‘implementation’ factor grows!

To see VA’s CTE website: http://www.cteresource.org/about/ (*Note: be sure to see the brightly colored CTE logos at the bottom right. If you’ve followed my blog long, you’ll recognize these as CCSS aligned all the way)

Technical Detail #4 for KY: The entire goal for the 2015 approved waiver from KY is ‘career/college ready for ALL students’. The graphic on page 33 explains in much better than I can.

To see KY’s entire waiver request (which is extremely worthy as an anti CCSS tool): ky3req32015

New Mexico!:

The final state is New Mexico. Oddly enough, NM hasn’t updated their ESEA/NCLB waiver request since 2011.

Technical Detail #1 for NM: In the waiver request an acknowledgement to a private philanthropic foundation in helping fund the implementation of CCSS (see page 28) with a grant to the Public Education Dept. of NM is made.

Technical Detail #2 for NM: Using the letter grades to reward or punish entire schools (see page 18 for a short description).

While this has been a long article, I hope you’ve been able to see the similarities from each of the 5, after all, they were chosen as leaders. You need to know (if you haven’t read each of their waiver requests), that the number 1 priority was College/Career Readiness. Each state also pledged to up the ante for 21st Century Community Learning Centers. All of them agreed to more AP courses, more College Board, and more indoctrination!